Oppo Digital announced the release of the new Sonica. The newest entry into the Oppo family of digital audio products, Sonica DAC merges audiophile-grade performance with the latest network streaming technology, the company says. According to the press release, Sonica DAC improves upon the highly regarded audio performance of previous Oppo products, such as the HA-1 headphone amplifier and BDP-105 universal player, and presents an upgraded DAC chip set, the flagship ESS ES9038PRO Sabre DAC.
As a traditional audiophile DAC, Sonica DAC features all of the inputs and features one expects, including the ability to handle high resolution PCM and DSD audio formats and the ability to function as a high-resolution audio player and decode files directly from connected USB hard drives and thumb drives.
The device features asynchronous USB DAC for computer audio, using its high precision clock, not relying on the clock quality of the computer. The USB DAC input supports PCM up to 768kHz 32-bit and DSD up to 25MHz (DSD512).
Sonica DAC is a high resolution network audio player and decoder, capable of decoding audio files up to 24-bit/192 kHz from formats such as FLAC, WAV and Apple Lossless, as well as DSD files at 64x sample rate. Additionally, as a member of the Oppo Sonica product family, the “AUX” input of Sonica DAC enables you to connect an existing analog audio source to the Sonica multi-room network.
For network streaming, Sonica DAC offers both wired Ethernet and built-in Wi-Fi, while a free Sonica app allows easy navigation of the music collection and playback control. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices and allows to stream music from any smartphone or tablet, as well as from network shares on a computer or NAS drive. There is, also, support for Apple AirPlay and Bluetooth.
Coaxial and optical digital audio inputs provide an easy connection to additional digital audio sources. The DAC provides both XLR balanced and RCA single-ended connectors for its audio output and the audio path is fully balanced from the DAC chip all the way to the XLR jacks.